Canada’s Prime Minister Harper, Mexico’s President Calderon and U.S. President Obama (L-R) pose for pictures after the North American Leaders’ Summit in Guadalajara, Mexico, August 10, 2009. The summit concluded here on Monday.

N American nations agree to push for green fund to cut carbon emissions

GUADALAJARA, MEXICO, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) — The three North American nations have agreed to push for a green fund to reward nations that cut carbon emissions, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon said on Monday at a press conference in Guadalajara that marks the end of two days of meeting in the western Mexico city.

“We agreed a green fund and to work together to achieve a climate change agreement in Copenhagen,” Calderon said. Denmark’s capital Copenhagen will host the talks to find a new agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol on climate change at the end of the year.

Calderon had proposed the green fund scheme at the Major Nations Climate Conference held in southern Mexican state Morelos in June. All nations would pay into the fund, but poorer nations who reduced carbon emissions would be able to withdraw more than they put in.

Canada’s Prime Minister Harper, U.S. President Obama and Mexico’s President Calderon (L-R) leave after a joint news conference at the North American Leaders’ Summit in Guadalajara, Mexico, August 10, 2009. The summit concluded here on Monday.

“We are also working to boost our carbon bonds markets with the goal of creating an international carbon bond market,” he said.

Carbon bonds are a private sector version of the green fund, where individuals, companies and non-government organizations who can reduce emissions sell the right to make emissions to richer carbon emitters.

Speaking at the same meeting, Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, said that the three leaders of the United States, Mexico and Canada had agreed that it is vital to confront climate change.

“We know that the cost of acting will be high, but the cost our people and future generations will have to pay for inaction will be incalculably more,” he said.

Calderon said the nations had agreed to make progress on green energy and technology.

Canada’s Prime Minister Harper, Mexico’s President Calderon and U.S. President Obama (L-R) pose for pictures after the North American Leaders’ Summit in Guadalajara, Mexico, August 10, 2009.

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File photo of Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud in 2004. The United States declined on Friday to confirm reports that Baitullah Mehsud, Taliban chief in Pakistan, has likely been killed along with his wife and bodyguards in a drone strike, Aug. 7, 2009.

White House declines to confirm death of Taliban chief in Pakistan

WASHINGTON, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) — The United States declined on Friday to confirm reports that Baitullah Mehsud, Taliban chief in Pakistan, has likely been killed along with his wife and bodyguards in a drone strike.

“The United States cannot confirm that he has been killed in a drone attack, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

However, the spokesman said that “There seems to be a growing consensus among credible observers that he is indeed dead.”

File photo of Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud in 2004. The United States declined on Friday to confirm reports that Baitullah Mehsud, Taliban chief in Pakistan, has likely been killed along with his wife and bodyguards in a drone strike, Aug. 7, 2009.

“Baitullah Mehsud is somebody who has well earned his label as a murderous thug. … He has killed scores of innocent men, women and children and is supposed to have plotted the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. If he is dead, without a doubt, the people of Pakistan will be safer as a result,” Gibbs said.

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said in Islamabad on Thursday that the Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mahsud was killed in the missile attack on Wednesday. He said “We have some information, but they don’t have material evidence to confirm it.”

Mehsud has been the leader since 2007 of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, a coalition of Taliban factions loyal to Afghanistan’s Taliban leader, Mohammad Omar. An ally of al-Qaida, Mehsud commands as many as 20,000 fighters in Pakistan’s rugged northwestern frontier region and has directed or supported numerous suicide bombings in Pakistan, including a deadly attack in 2008 on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s active promotion of Putonghua: After two generations into a language

BEIJING, September 17 Xinhua Singapore hit by global economic crisis, more attention to strengthen relations with China and the strategic urgency of efforts are being made to the local Chinese bilingual advantage as the starting point, struggling to take China’s rapid economic development of the Express. Singapore is a multi-ethnic country, has been the dominant language is English, but now Singapore leaders predicted that Mandarin could become their own future, the dominant language, are actively encouraging people to learn Chinese. Hong Kong, “Wen Wei Po” 17 reported that Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew predicted that, Putonghua in two generations of Singaporeans would become the mother tongue.

In Singapore’s Chinatown, the voices, the purchase of July Halloween Taijiadoumang used incense and fruit, etc., while the bustling crowd can always hear the Chinese Mandarin and English both languages. Chinatown, a shopkeeper, said: “in Chinese and English are important, because different situations require different languages. But the Chinese are increasingly important.”

Learning Chinese in Singapore Promotion Committee Chairman Lin Shaofen (transliterated), said: “China’s importance on the world stage is increasing, while ethnic Chinese Singaporeans in dealing with Chinese people, both in language and cultural advantage.”

Hope into a “China-centered” grab overseas enterprises

Singapore’s first Prime Minister and current Minister Lee Kuan Yew in 2009, Mandarin campaign launch ceremony, said: “another two generations, Mandarin will become our mother tongue.” As China’s business interests in Southeast Asia, expanding , Lee Kuan Yew want Singapore to become the region’s “China-centered,” while Singapore companies can consolidate their position in China, in foreign companies to gain first-mover advantage.

Chinese government-backed promotional activities began in 1979, the aim is to allow different district unification of Chinese speak Mandarin; their predecessors in the 19th century and early 20th century, came to Singapore, because of said different dialects, resulting in future generations people, speaking in a different dialect. For the majority of ethnic Chinese in Singapore, while ethnic minorities are also a large number of Malays and Indians. The promotion of Putonghua in the early days, the organizers do not encourage the Chinese Taiwanese-speaking and other dialects.

According to government data, now the majority of Singaporeans have been able to speak Mandarin at home, so the focus has shifted to the promotion of Putonghua speaking and writing fluency extent. Advantages in the Chinese with the help of Singapore is currently the senior management of multinational operations in China in the cultivation hotbed, because many multinational companies in China suffer from recruit the right local talent.